The sonic innovators responsible for the Doctor Who theme, Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, Quatermass, Living Planet and many other classic BBC TV and radio music, will be performing live at Hastings Fat Tuesday as part of Sonics - a two-day celebration of experimental electronic music and visuals (2-3 March 2019).

Their immersive audio-visual performance will be inspired by life in Hastings, and the Radiophonic Workshop now invite Hastings locals to submit their sounds.

Founded in 1958 by Desmond Briscoe and Daphne Oram, the BBC Radiophonic Workshop was home to a maverick group of experimental composers, sound engineers and musical innovators, who set about exploring new ways of using technology to create sounds.

They created the soundtracks to some of BBC television and radio's most iconic programmes and their influence on popular music has been profound, from The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Prince and Pink Floyd through to contemporary electronic artists and DJs such as Aphex Twin, Four Tet and The Orb.

New generations of musicians continue to discover their extraordinary back catalogue.

Now, nearly two decades after the Workshop was decommissioned by John Birt, original members Peter Howell, Roger Limb, Dr Dick Mills, Paddy Kingsland and long-time associate composer Mark Ayres are working together once more.

Dick Mills, founder member of the Workshop, helped realise the original Doctor Who Theme in 1963, said:

"As the senior player in this Radiophonic Band I've travelled through time and space with that well-known Doctor many times.

"But this is a real journey into the unknown for all of us.

"For most of our careers we have remained unseen, a supporting part of someone else's TV or radio programs.

"Taking the music out of the Workshop means simply being ourselves as performers, sound designers and musicians and, of course, there's the huge adrenalin rush of it being live!

"It's going to be a thrill to meet audiences wherever they are and whatever dimension they are from!"

With their back catalogue being reissued, acclaimed new works such as Burials in Several Earths and 2018's Possum soundtrack, and a new live show, the rebirth of the Radiophonic Workshop continues.

Sonics is curated by James Weaver, a founder member of Warrior Squares, a Hastings based collective who make music in free improvisation form.

It was devised in 2015 by artist and musician Danny Pockets, who sadly lost his long battle with cancer in 2018.

The aim was to bring the rich, underground seam of experimental music and art within Hastings and St. Leonards on Sea out into the open.

In subsequent years the event has consistently delivered diverse, vibrant and fun days of visual and sonic adventure.

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The Ballad of Johnny Longstaff is the story of one man's adventure from begging on the streets in the north of England to fighting against fascism in the Spanish Civil War, taking in the Hunger Marches and the Battle of Cable Street.

In 1978, after having sold millions of records and become one of the biggest international artists of the 1970s, Cat Stevens decided to step out of the rock star spotlight and walk away. That year, he was to release his final album under that name.

Creators of stage showWild, Laura Mugridge and Katie Villa, want us to think about that thing we have all been through, but very few of us talk about, through a bold, riotous and strikingly visual show.

Brooklyn-based band Air Waves' new album, Warrior, is about being a Warrior in a queer body in this political climate, lead-singer Nicole Schneit's mother being a Warrior fighting chemotherapy, and being a Warrior in relationships.

Written just a year apart, Lone Star in 1979, Laundry & Bourbon in 1980, the plays share the same setting, themes and connected characters and, not surprisingly, are usually presented on the same bill.